After abandoning my initial plan of studying theoretical physics in college, I found myself drifting for reasons I didn't understand very well at the time towards the nebulous topic of Religious Studies. It wasn't out of the lingering urge to understand the workings of the universe, as some have assumed; I was too much of a materialist to go barking up the religion tree for that. Instead I was motivated primarily by ethical questions--and by the need to scrap together a major from my motley coursework thus far.
Image: His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama telling China he's "no demon." The DL is in fact revered as a reincarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the embodiment of compassion.
Within the hallowed halls of the Religion department I found answers to some burning questions--sometimes. Sometimes I simply learned that I wasn't asking the right questions, the important or useful ones. And sometimes in Postmodern Religious Thought seminar we simply drank Guinness or sangria until our brains were numb enough to broach Derrida or Heidegger. Finally, with a B.A. in "Religion" under my arm, I found myself with more questions than I ever started with. (This is tangential, but I can't pass up the opportunity to mention my classmate and former roommate Toby Louis David's brilliant graduation speech, in which he likens the Swarthmore experience to the Jews' journey through the desert to the promised land--and manages to reference the "scrotum-tightening sea.")
After college, I did the only reasonable thing and forgot about religion entirely for a while. I proceeded to take my own advice and "follow my weirdness." As my weirdness is considerable and rather strong-willed, I roamed the country, worked in an Indian restaurant, dabbled in homesteading and goat-rearing on a much beloved once and future commune site in Vermont, and eventually landed in New Mexico at a funky little place called the Ayurvedic Institute. It was there, in a strip mall a couple miles East of the Rio Grande, that my journey really began.
I speak, not too obscurely I hope, of my internal or spiritual journey: my own idiosyncratic way to growth, meaning, and fulfillment in what a mass email I never subscribed to keeps calling "this dream of life." Thanks, Chava, whoever you are. Having by now taken a few steps along this path, I find I have a somewhat altered perspective on religion.
Religion can be thought of us as the larger construct: the institutions, the encapsulized traditions, the ritual--that which the living force we might call spirituality leaves in its wake across history. Spirituality doesn't require religion--what use the flame for the tinderbox?. And, unfortunately, religion doesn't require spirituality either. Religious violence, pederast priests, and the myopic bigotry that so often attends religious life in America all stand as a reminder of this. No religious tradition I'm aware of has escaped some degree of degradation once the living spark that Jesus or Mohammed or Buddha brought to be bear faded. Material concerns loom larger, doctrinal issues arise. In the case of Christianity, people spend two thousand years fighting over just how Jesus said to love one another.
Of course religion does have a role to play, as the living spark of spirituality does tend to fade or be lost. Religion provides the structure to bridge the gap until the spark can be recovered. It preserves vast amounts of learning, and if it can remain separate from power as such, it usually doesn't too too much harm. It certainly provides an an inspiration or at least an excuse for huge amounts of timeless art and music. It gives the masses some idea of ethical principles, even if it has to do it by scaring them with threats of hell or lower rebirths.
With my renewed interest in the world of religion--for all its flaws, religious institutions are still likely places to catch whiffs of spiritual insight--I was relieved, then, during a recent 5 day Intro to Buddhism course at Tushita Meditation Center in Dharamshala, when the teacher stated during the first session that "the Buddha doesn't want you to become a Buddhist." This was a good sign: non-sectarianism is a characteristic of genuine spiritual searching. The appeal of Buddhism for many is precisely that it tends the living spark of the spiritual quest. Such questing is always an intensely personal matter, since we each come with our own baggage: the habit patterns of mind, speech, and body. Of these, it is the mental patterns which are most deeply-rooted. It is an example of the principle that the subtle governing the gross. Every vicious act of rape or murder begins with a "defilement"--anger, hatred, envy, lust--in the mind.
Now, it is one of the central insights of the Buddhist tradition that the nature of everything is "empty:" empty of inherent, independent existence. This is only another way of saying that everything is interdependent. This emphatically includes ourselves: though we like to re-ify our personalities as real objects, Buddhism correctly argues (and Wittgenstein agrees) that the word "me" is ultimately an empty signifier. The "me" in question always depends on such a host of factors, causes and conditions that to look at it as anything essential is absurd. Of course there's a conventional me; we all know what this means; the trick is not to mistake it for anything ultimate or inherent. It's important to recognize the unreality of the me as well.
The most significant aspect of our "me"s is the mind. Subtlety, again, trumping grossness. Never mind that the mind, too, is empty of inherent existence; like "me" and so many things, it is a useful fiction. All the Buddhist traditions are intensely preoccupied with the mind, because the mind is where all the action is. We construct our worlds in the mind, shape our experiences, and, as pointed out earlier, gestate our actions of speech and body. Not really existing anyway, minds are infinitely malleable: look at all the things they can learn, the feats they can perform: from Polynesian stellar navigation to polyrhythmic drumming, from the Macarena to multivariable calculus. They've invented Nutella.
The mind, for all its talents, is awfully good at getting us in trouble. This is a way of stating Buddha's First Noble Truth: that life is duhkha: suffering, discord. Of course there's the mundane suffering that so many billions of have-nots experience due to their material circumstances. But even amongst those who do have, lasting happiness is exceedingly rare. What's the problem? Why can't the many of us who have what we really need just be happy? Buddha's answer acknowledges the tendency of our minds: to desire, to grasp at, to crave. Or, on the flip side, to shy from, to avoid, to fear or hate. What we do--almost all of us, almost all the time--is to look for happiness in experiences that by their nature are fleeting. We repeatedly seek out those neurochemical states that we learn to induce whether by food, drugs, sex, exercise, or someone laughing at our jokes. This craving mind is like a child, undisciplined, and we don't at first know any better than to indulge it. We do so all the time. The trouble is, where we indulge, the child spoils: the craving only grows stronger.
This is one way of looking at the human condition. It may sound pessimistic, but actually this Buddhist view looks on the bright side: there is a reliable medicine for our ailing minds. It is known as the Dharma, the truth, the way. Buddha himself is the doctor that has prescribed it for humanity, and the third essential component, the supporting staff of nurses and attendants who do much of the day-to-day curative work, is called the Sangha--the community of other practitioners. A nice quality of the dharma is that it is true--at least it regognizes certain fundamental realities for what they are--and is therefore true by any name. So enough about Buddhas and Sanghas. Back to the living kernel of truth, as best I understand it.
We were at the point of turning to a new approach to the mind-child, a disciplinary one. This is a matter of re-patterning, cultivating new habits and understandings until gradually the old ones fade out and our spoilt child becomes a model Timmy. A number of tools are useful here, including but not limited to the proverbial stick and carrot. All of them involve meditation at some stage, as this is where we can work directly on the mind.
The particular pattern of the mind we've recognized as an enemy of our own happiness is the part that is ever hungry for more happiness, or rather more pleasant sensations. In earlier posts I've written about Samatha or calming meditation, the technique of stabilizing and focusing the mind so that we can see clearly. I've described the Vipassana technique of deep insight and re-patterning as taught by S.N. Goenka at his international centers. Vipassana trains us not to blindly grab at those pleasant sensations, but to observe them as they arise and watch them pass away. In the process we gain insight into impermanence. This is deep work but slow, and requires a firm foundation in Samatha, concentration. Here I want to introduce something else, something that stands alone and that doesn't require such sustained, committed practice to bear fruit.
Since what we're aiming to abolish is a kind of selfishness, the tendency always to seek more pleasure for ourselves, we can apply an antidote in the form of an altruistic attitude. We can consciously practice putting others first, and not only in terms of their happiness but in terms of their suffering. If we take on others' suffering ourselves, it will act as a sort of poison that the "self-cherishing mind" can't abide. The self-cherishing attitude will loosen its grip, and as it does so it will free our minds--a concept coterminous in many Asian traditions with that of heart--to release love. Put this way, it sounds like a tall order. The trick is, we can do it in our minds first, using the faculty of imagination to lay the first lines of a pattern that we wish to become our reality.
The technique is called "Exchanging Self and Others." It is based on the following piece of reasoning. 'All beings deserve happiness and have the potential to achieve it. I want most urgently to help them along the way, but my abilities to do so are limited. Therefore I should do whatever I can do help myself help others.' As this is a technique from Buddhism (a Tibetan branch of Mahayana Buddhism, to be a bit more precise), the logic continues 'I should become enlightened so that I can help others as much as humanly possible.' This desire to achieve for oneself so that one may help others achieve is a step in the direction of what's called bodhicitta, the altruistic Mind of Enlightenment. The meditation technique I'm going to describe is a means of cultivating bodhicitta, that is of expanding one's circle of compassion, in Gandhi-ji's terms. But wait, some might say, wasn't the whole purpose supposed to be to increase our own happiness? And all we've even started to think about doing is taking on the suffering of others in exchange for what happiness we've got? False advertizing! Ah. But our own happiness is not a fixed quantity, nor something to be hoarded. As this practice can reveal, helping others generates happiness in ourselves as a by-product. As the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi says, " it is in giving that we receive...". He weren't just being a romantic.
Exchanging Self and Others Meditation
Seat yourself comfortably and stably and take a few minutes to settle using whatever method works. Let thoughts slow down as the awareness sinks down into the body. Become aware of the breath and let it lengthen and deepen. Relax.
The practice begins with the understanding that others are equally as deserving and capable of happiness as oneself, and that since there are so many more others than there are of oneself (which is only one, in fact), it is appropriate to work for their happiness rather than one's own. With this altruistic motivation established, the practice begins. It is easiest to start small, so we in fact begin with ourselves before expanding outward. Imagine all your future suffering, the pain, the negative emotions, and imagine being able to take it upon yourself now. As you inhale, draw in some of that future suffering as a black, noxious cloud. This is distasteful and may be difficult, if you are visualizing strongly, but try and keep inhaling the black smoke. As you do so, imagine it flowing to your hard, self-cherishing heart. The selfishness in you can't stand all this suffering, and the presence of the suffering weakens it. Keep breathing in the black suffering smoke and letting it dissolve your self-cherishing, and begin to envision happiness flowing back out with your exhale. This happiness can take the form of a pure white or golden light. Direct this happiness towards your future self. Keep breathing in the black smoke from your future and breathing out the pure light.
The next step is to expand your scope to include another person. It's easiest to start with someone you love. Picture inhaling their suffering, little by little, letting it dissolve the hard selfishness in your heart, and exhaling pure light of happiness for them. Watch the expression on their face relax as you relieve them of their burden.
As you feel ready, add another person. At some point, try visualizing someone you've had difficulty with in the past, an enemy, even. They are no different than you in wanting happiness, and maybe less clear about how to achieve it. And it will relieve you to comfort them selflessly, even in the mind.
As you work, imagine the scale of the enterprise growing. You're no longer breathing in the suffering of individuals, but of households, entire neighborhoods, regions, countries. As your energy and imagination permit, you can work up to the point of imagining yourself breathing in the suffering of the entire planet of sentient beings, unleashing it on your self-cherishing, and returning back the selfless love that results.
However far you take the practice, at its apex, breathe in extra deeply of the black smoke and hold it in. Feel it massed there in your chest, caustic, noxious, stinking, unbearable. It is unbearable that beings should suffer like this. It is unbearable that you should have to take it upon yourself. Feel the explosion as your self-cherishing attitude disintegrates, leaving only a wash of pure light for you to exhale to everyone in your scope.
The practice can end in the traditional Mahayana way, with a dedication to all beings. Or just sit quietly for another few minutes, watching how your mind has reacted and reflecting on what significance the practice holds for you at this time.
Finally, in the spirit of non-sectarianism, I'd like to offer the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi.
- Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
- where there is hatred, let me sow love;
- where there is injury, pardon:
- where there is doubt, faith;
- where there is despair, hope
- where there is darkness, light
- where there is sadness, joy
- O divine Master,
- grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
- to be understood, as to understand;
- to be loved, as to love;
- for it is in giving that we receive,
- it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
- and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
- Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment